In honor of the upcoming Oscars, I'd like to examine the role of classical music in the movies.
The film industry we see today was to a large extent established by European immigrants: Adolph Zukor, who arrived from Hungary at age 16; Harry Warner, born in Poland; and Carl Laemmle from Germany, another teenage immigrant -- to name just a few.
These men established studios that still bear their mark, from Laemmle's Universal Studios to Zukor's Paramount. They were entrepreneurs with a very hands-on attitude, controlling every aspect of the film-making process, including the music.
What we now call classical music (does anyone have a definitive definition of classical music?) was in Europe a part of the overall culture, so it's not too surprising that the films of people like Marcus Loew and William Fox used Beethoven, Verdi, Schubert and Prokofiev, four composers particularly popular in the 1930s.
Understandable, you might think, in what we today would call an "Art Film," but here are some of the titles that used Verdi's music: Monkey Business, Moonlight Murder and Blackmailer.
Beethoven doesn't fare much better. His titles include Murder, Life is a Dog (not to be confused with My LIfe as a Dog), Dishonored, and The Black Cat, and this was only the early 1930s.
And classical wasn't just for adult movies. Up until the early 60s, The Lone Ranger, Alfred Hitchcock and Bugs Bunny brought us the "William Tell Overture," "Danse Macabre" and "Ride of the Valkyries." Walt Disney capitalized on the popularity of classical music, making it the foundation of his film Fantasia.
Today there are, at a very conservative estimate, some 1,640 movie titles using over 173 composers. (Visit Bohemian Opera for a comprehensive list of films featuring classical music.) Some of the titles include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, Choral, 4th mvt. "Ode to Joy"); Any Given Sunday: Donizetti Finale scene from the opera La Fille du Régiment and Mussorgsky's "The Great Gate of Kiev" ("Pictures at an Exhibition"); A Very Brady Sequel: Mendelssohn's Wedding March from A Midsummer Night's Dream, as well as Telemann's Concerto in F major for recorder, strings and continuo; Spy Kids 2: Villa-Lobos' Aria (Cantilena) from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.
Which brings us back to the Oscars. See if you know which films nominated for an Academy Award this year use the following:
- "Un di, felice," prelude to Act One of La Traviata
- "Mal reggendo all'aspro assalto" from the opera IIl Trovatore
- Ligeti Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs & Orchestra
- "Also Sprach Zarathustra" ("Ode to the Sun")
Who knows, maybe on March 5 an Oscar winner will get up and say, "I'd like to thank a very dear, dead composer ..."
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Paulette McDaniels is an actor/writer who works in theatre and film. She is also the grandmother of Freddy and Paige. She has lived in the Middle East and Europe, and she would like to thank Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and the Lone Ranger for igniting a life-long love of classical music.
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Publius (not verified) | Mon, 05/22/2006 - 2:52pm
You bring up some very good points Ms. McDaniels. I wish you had mentioned that the movie "Babe" (wasn't that the one about the pig?) used The Organ Symphony by Saint-Saens for the conclusion and throughout the whole movie.
However, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, a lot of composers who worked in the Classical style were able to make very successful careers for themselves; some of their film compositions standing on their own as compositions independent of the film. Bernard Herrmann is an excellent example. Starting in New York in the 30's with Aaron Copland, Orson Welles eventually brought him to Hollywood where he scored intriguing, dramatic scores that have echoes of the past, as well as being an entirely new compositions.
Even Martin Sorcese said about Herrmann's Hitchcock's scores that they were "like a vortex." Sorcese said that it reminded him of Wagner because of the "endless melody" or "endless sound." If one listens to Herrmann's superb score for Vertigo carefully, one can easily make a comparison to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. And Vertigo was also about "endless love." There was a melody that just continued in lush traditional harmonies; which reaches a climax (almost sexual, like Wagner) and then ends softly, drawn-out, sustained, almost as if it doesn't want to end before reaching a peaceful conclusion. (I wish WFMT would play this music sometime.)
"I'd like to thank a very dear, dead composer," actually did happen in 1947; at the Oscar ceremony, Tiomkin thanked Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss and Schubert while the audience was snickering.
Bruce R. Weaver
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